We’ve been following the Bush Administration’s alleged attempts to censor NASA scientists and research findings for the last couple of months. Today, we learn that NASA has unveiled new rules on the release of agency information. The Washington Post has an article, NASA Sets New Rules On Media. They state…

NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin unveiled new rules yesterday that govern the release of agency information to news media and the public, his most detailed response yet to embarrassing allegations that NASA’s public affairs office had sought to suppress the release of scientific information not consistent with the views of the Bush administration.

While the new rules seem like a welcomed clarification (or change?), it does seem like they want to have both ways. The Post reports…

It calls upon all NASA employees to coordinate with public affairs officials before releasing information “that has the potential to generate significant media, or public interest or inquiry.” Employees are also encouraged “to the maximal extent practicable” to have a public affairs officer present at media interviews “to attest to the content of the interview, support the interviewee, and provide post-interview follow-up with the media as necessary.”

We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out. You may want to read the New York Times article on the same topic to learn more, New NASA Policy Backs Free Discussion by Scientists.

On Saturday we had a huge fiesta at the Ideum Studio. It was the last day of the Museums and the Web Conference and we invited all attendees and our friends to come out. Folks toured the studio and then listened to music in the Rancho de Corrales and the Territorial Saloon next door.

It was great to see everyone out here in the little Village of Corrales. I hope those of you who attended had a good time. Many people commented on the music. Mariachi Nuevo Sonido and Goshen were the two bands that played. A review of Goshen’s performance is on MikeL’s blog on the Museums and the Web online site. Our Fiesta page has links to audio clips and more information about each band.

To relive the evening, or to see what you missed there are number of photos posted on the Flickr mw2006 pool with the tag “corrales.” We hope to see many of you at next year’s conference in our old home town of San Francisco.

Just last year we designed the Website for the Nevada Clean Energy Coalition. Today’s Reno Gazette-Journal is reporting Sempra to sell interest in Nevada power project. This development was not completely unexpected as we posted a story that Sempra Energy had halted its federally required environmental study earlier in the month.

Sempra is selling the development rights which means another company could step in and continue development. The company spokesman Art Larson…

“We are selling development rights to Granite Fox and for the Idaho project. Whomever buys those development rights will take the projects forward from that point,” Larson said.

However, we’re hopeful that this the last nail in the coffin for this “19th Century” power plant. The article quotes David Rumsey part of the Nevada Clean Energy Coalition…

“They are getting out of the coal business,” said Rumsey, whose home on the Smoke Creek Desert is surrounded by a nature preserve. “I’m hopeful there will not be another power company foolish enough to try to take over the Granite Fox project.”

Out of discussions we all had at Museums and the Web, The Walker’s New Media Initiatives Blog is asking So what is a “blog carnival”?

Along those same lines Mario Bucolo Museums Blog is trying to organize a meet up in AAM Boston.

In other blogs…The Pulitzer blog at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis provides a tour of their Underbelly. Hangingtogether.org has posted on the Metropolitan’s Scholars’ License this is second time we’ve heard about STEVE in a week. The Curator’s Egg says “Flash! Ah-aaah!” as they look at the collaborative online ‘game” put together by our friend Geoff Crane and Questacon in Australia. The Museumpro.org is gone? No they are All New and Coming Soon.

New blogs. A few museum blogs that did make our Survey of Museum Blogs or the follow up have contacted me. Australia’s Powerhouse Museum has a fresh + new blog that has been posting since May 2005. Kulturelle Welten is a German language blog about museums. Finally, the Museum Detective joins us from New Zealand.

Looking for more from museum blogs? You can check out our first Museum Blog Round Up.

If anyone doubts that their is a “War on Science” in the United States just read The Missing Link article from the Arkansas Times. A teacher at a “science education institution that serves several Arkansas public school districts” explained to the author of the article…

Teachers at his facility are forbidden to use the “e-wordâ€? (evolution) with the kids. They are permitted to use the word “adaptationâ€? but only to refer to a current characteristic of an organism, not as a product of evolutionary change via natural selection. They cannot even use the term “natural selection.â€?

This teacher is also a geologist. He explains…

I am instructed NOT to use hard numbers when telling kids how old rocks are. I am supposed to say that these rocks are VERY VERY OLD … but I am NOT to say that these rocks are thought to be about 300 million years old.â€?

It’s not just happening in Arkansas. This type of thinking (rejecting science for whatever reason) is alive and well in the MSM. Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” George Will gave us a bizarre “science lesson” on Global Warming. Crooks and Liars has the video. Update: Perhaps George Will should read Why global warming is not natural in the Sunday Times.

Last week Museums on the Web Conference (MW) was held here in New Mexico right across the Rio Grande in downtown Albuquerque. We were glad for its proximity, because not only would we not have to travel far (really no travel at all), we were also able to invite the conferences attendees to celebrate our new studio in Corrales, New Mexico. It was very hectic in the studio in the weeks leading up to the conference — there was a lot of prep work to do — so by the time saturday night rolled around we were able to have some fun, and we hope everyone else who attended our after conference party had fun as well.

I tried to attend as many sessions I could in between working the Ideum booth and helping out with a workshop that Jim put on. Overall I thought a lot of people are doing some interesting work (especially the “The Mystery of the X-Fishâ€? project — the design process and final product was right on target), but a few themes really resonated with me. One major overarching theme throughout the conference was increasing audience access to museums (their collections, educational initiatives, etc..) via the web or other technologies. Along these lines, in the opening plenary Jemima Rellie described museum web sites as a place to prepare visitors for a visit, extend the museum experience, and potentially replace the museum floor. I thought this was a good and succinct overview of the purpose of a museum website and reflects Ideum’s feeling that a museum website should be treated the same as the museum floor.

There was a lot of buzz about Web 2.0, its effects/meaning, and how to leverage the techniques/technologies. I attended the session on the Steve project, which dealt with ways to incorporate folksonomies — the ultimate Web 2.0 innovation — into museums. It was suggested that folksonomies not only can be used to enhance find-ability, but also can be used to elicit meaning and conversation. It’s about allowing the users/visitors to expressing their viewpoint which might be vastly different from the rigid taxonomy that of the collections — very interesting. This definitely ties into increasing access for your audience.

And speaking of your audience the most resonant theme for me was the call to increase our overall understanding of our audience from Rob Semper. Rob states in his paper, “Museums still do not really know who is out there browsing. Who is using museum on-line resources and why?â€? He continued this theme in his talk during the opening plenary by stating that we might be creating things on the web that simply might not be used. Rob further suggested that the commercial industry already has a good pulse on their audience and utilizes it to their advantage, so why shouldn’t we?

I missed the Best of The Web Awards, but I was pleased with the results, “Science Buzzâ€? won best overall website. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a cool site with some great content. Also be sure to check out the paper Jim presented at the conference covering Community Sites and Emerging Sociable Technologies. Overall, I had a great time at MW and we thank everyone who stopped by the Ideum booth for a chat and came to our party saturday night. We look forward to next year’s conference.

A very busy week as we are facilitating, presenting, exhibiting, and soon will be partying at the Museums and the Web Conference. A few quick things to report.

Museums and the Web has its own community site and participants are posting images to Flickr. Also, the Walker Art Center’s New Media Initiative Blog is covering a number of the sessions.

Podcasting and blogging seem to be the big topics this year and I have had several very interesting discussions about where all this is headed. There’s been talk about perhaps forming a Blog Carnival for museum blogs. This idea has come from out of session entitled, All Weblogs Are Not Created Equal by Daniel Mosquin from the University British Columbia Botanical Garden who operates a series of blogs.

Earlier in the month we posted a Survey of Museum Blogs & Community Sites as well as a follow up post with a more complete list and a “call for action” to get museum blogs to cite each other and link to each other more often. As a group, we don’t have much authority in the blogging world. Perhaps we should look into starting a carnival, or some other method for more regularly citing each other more often? Maybe this could be picked up by those museum bloggers who are meeting at AAM as well?

Here at Ideum we’ve been video podcasting since Apple released the video capable iPod last fall. We podcast a series of short videos we developed for NASA as part of the Traditions of the Sun site. In addition, we encoded a promotional video developed by the Museum of the African Diaspora, back when we redesigned their site late last year.

Just this week, we created a podcast for the Tech Museum of Innovation. We’ve been working with them on the Understanding Genetics site for the past two years. We’ve helped develop series of short interviews about genetics and ethics. Here are the links to iTunes and to XML files.

iTunes Link:
Traditions of the Sun

Understanding Genetics

Introducing MoAD

XML Link:
Traditions of the Sun

Understanding Genetics

Introducing MoAD

Also, in case you missed it MODE posted a list Museum Podcasts back in February.

Last night 60 Minutes aired a piece entitled, “ReWriting the Science” about NASA scientist Jim Hansen and the efforts of the Bush administration to silence him. I posted about this story back in January and February with links to articles in the New York Times and Washington Post. Ironically, all of the attention has helped Dr. Hansen get the word out that Climate Change is ‘real’ and that human activity is the likely culprit…

“There’s no doubt about that,” says Hansen. “The natural changes, the speed of the natural changes is now dwarfed by the changes that humans are making to the atmosphere and to the surface.”

Crooks and Liars has the video.

The New Media Initiatives Blog at the Walker has posted their set of guidelines for blog authors. Essential reading for those museums considering jumping into the blogosphere.

elearnspace has the latest on Web 2.0 a New Wave of Innovation for Teaching Learning an article in EDUCAUSE REVIEW.

The Museum People’s Journal cites an article an article from the Chicagoist: Museum’s Aren’t Attracting Diverse Crowds. (No permalinks, so I linked directly to the article.)

Assembly Looks at the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Eye Level reminds us to Think Green. Irish eyes are smiling.